March 1, 2015
Hebrews 12:28-29
“Hallowed Be Thy Name”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis
Hallowed. Hallow-ed. In the Lord’s Prayer as it appears in the Greek of the New Testament, the word “hallowed”, it is a verbal form of the root word for holy. Holy is a descriptor; an adjective. Hallow is a verb, an action word. Hallow: to make holy, to sanctify, to purify. Hallowed. Sanctified. Purified. Hallowed be Thy name. Sanctified. Purified. Hallowed is your name, O God. God’s name is holy. Yes. God is Holy. But the phrase in the prayer connotes action; it comes in a verbal form. Not just God is holy. Not just your name is holy, O God. But make holy, keep holy your name. To just make up a word, how about “holify”? “Holify” your name”. Holy. Precious. Awesome Awesome-ify your name, O God.
Not just the descriptor, but the action. Hallowed. Sanctified. Purified. Holy-fied. One might conclude that the action, here, the bestowing of holiness on God comes from the person offering the prayer. That you and I somehow keep God holy, make God holy, maintain God’s holiness as the words take shape on our lips. I had a coach in college who had a favorite saying when one of us would make a mistake. He said it often, with great volume, and in the strongest of Boston accents: “Holy Mary Mother of God”. I can pretty much guarantee that Mary was no more holy because of him. In the biggest of pictures, in the grand theological scheme, it stands as fairly obvious that humanity is not in the business of preserving the holiness of God, even by our most pious efforts. No, the action implied, acknowledged here at the beginning of the Lord’s prayer, it must belong to God. Hallowed be Thy name.
Holy places. Holy moments. Holy people. Holy things. Your list might be long. Your list might be short. But everyone has a list of what they consider holy in their lives. People whisper in holy places. People get goose bumps, or get teary, or speechless in holy moments. People honor and are humbled by those they consider holy. People handle and preserve and shine and dust holy things. If you took your list of that which is holy in your life and tried to use other words, other descriptors, think what those words would be: special, memorable, unique, faith-filled, unforgettable, sacred, godly, loveable, irreplaceable, important, priceless. It’s kind of odd, the word “holy” is so overdone, can be so easily trite. Yet, other words really won’t do. When it comes to trying to grasp what on earth or in heaven it means that God is holy, none of those other words on the list even come close. When you’re trying to find meaning in the biblical witness to the holiness of God, words don’t come all that easy. When your trying to make any sense in your own life to what difference it makes that God is holy, all those other words just sort of fall into a heap of “not very helpful”. When you and I pray, “hallowed be Thy name”, holy is your name, O God”, it sort of serves as an acknowledgment that nothing else really works. It’s the best we can do. It’s the only language we have for you, O God.
Our Lenten Small Groups that are reflecting on and discussing the Lord’s Prayer are using a study guide offered through the website “The Thoughtful Christian”. I have already thrown things off a bit by splitting “Our Father” and “hallowed be thy name” in our preaching life. Both are in the first lesson of The Thoughtful Christian series. Our own Carol Wehrheim wrote the Leaders Guide. A Methodist pastor and professor named Ellsworth Kalas wrote the study guide for each week. In addressing “hallowed be thy name” the author points out the tension between the intimacy of calling God “father” and the distance implied with “hallowed”. He goes on to point out how that tension portrays the immanence and the transcendence of God. Immanence meaning God present with us. Transcendence asserting the God is far beyond us. Here in the opening phrase, the writer concludes, “the immanence and the transcendence of God are equally true and equally important, each so true that their concepts must be blended in one breath.”
Here’s the problem, immanence and transcendence, that might be good for conversation on a cold night in a warm living room with coffee and a bun, it might be good for study and writing and discussion in a classroom down the street, it’s just not very helpful when you are actually praying the Lord’s Prayer , when you are saying the prayer just before sleep that you have said as long as you can remember, when you have climbed to the top of a mountain on a crisp summer day and creation so knocks your socks off that you have no other words to say, when you are in the waiting room and so anxious you can’t really think of anything else, when you are craving a relevant, compelling notion about God, when you are praying “hallowed be thy name.” Keep on being holy, O God. Now, right now, O God, preserve your holiness in my life and in your world.
Don’t stop being holy, Lord God. Because, as one preacher, the preacher in the Book of Hebrews puts it: our God is a consuming fire. “Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire”. A consuming fire. Well, that’s hardly a domesticated, over done understanding of holy; God is a consuming fire. Commentators point out that the Book of Hebrews is to be read, understood, heard, as a sermon. The sermon is from an unknown preacher that heralds the work of Christ Jesus as the great high priest who was sacrificed at the cross for us. “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days God has spoken to us by a Son (1:1).” That’s how the sermon (the letter of Hebrews) begins. Memorable verses are throughout. “Let us therefore boldly approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy…..Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering…and let us provoke one another to love and good deeds…Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen….Therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses….”
The God is a consuming fire part, it comes near the end of the sermon as the preacher offers a riff on the holiness of God. It’s a complex few paragraphs contrasting the experience of God at Mt Sinai and the promised experience of God at Mt Zion, the heavenly city. The preacher is really bringing it now; complete with warnings of judgment and a reference to the sprinkled blood of Jesus and the power of God shaking both the heavens and the earth. God at work shaking, purifying, sanctifying, hallowing. When you imagine with your ears, hearing the preacher of Hebrews, here at the end of the sermon. Rhetorically, oratorically, the preaching is finishing with some heat now. The preacher. The preacher has set the table with “let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us” and “therefore lift your dropping hands and strengthen your weak knees” and “Pursue peace with everyone” and “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God”. The preacher has set the table and is bringing it home with a more than a bit of hellfire and brimstone. Bringing it home with the holiness of God. “Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire”.
A consuming fire that still judges, purifies, sanctifies, hallows, “holifies”. A consuming fire that elicits, brings out of us, evokes in and from us the worship of our lives. A consuming fire that brings about, results in, forges a kingdom that cannot be shaken. A consuming fire. The action oriented holiness of God. Don’t stop it, ever God!
The “hallowed be Thy name” part. It’s so easy to skip over. To smush it together with “Our Father”. But some days, probably most days, you and I and the world we live in, we could all use a bit more, call on a bit more, believe in a bit more, beg for a bit more of the action oriented holiness of God. Living in response to the gospel of Jesus Christ; it is a daily encounter. Right? Remembering your baptism. Basking in God’s grace, new every morning. Forgiveness a afresh. But it’s also, the experience of growing in faith, and having rough edges softened, and yearning to be a better disciple. Your prayers at the end of the day, it’s not just asking for forgiveness, it’s asking God to help you be more faithful tomorrow. Keep being holy in my life, O God. Keep that fire burning.
Calling on, calling out the holiness of God. How else can you pray for the world today? How else could you have any hope for the world today? Our prayers of intercession, our prayers for peace, our prayers for the world, they presuppose and depend on the conviction that God is still at work; judging, purifying, sanctifying; that God is still at work bringing about justice and righteousness and peace; that God is still in it and at it. That the God of Abraham and Sarah, the God of our forbearers, the God we know in and through Jesus Christ, that with mystery and power and spirit, God was, and is, and ever shall be holy, that God is still holy. That God is working God’s holiness; keeping God’s name holy, and bringing about, working on, ushering in a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Don’t stop now God!
This holiness of God, this ongoing, ever working holiness of God, it evokes in us, illicits from us, yes demands of us, our worship. The very worship of our lives. Our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving is how we say when we are the Table. God is holy and there is no other. If you’re going prayer the Lord’s Prayer on Tuesday, then you better be finding a place to sing on Sunday, because God is holy. I spent a few days in a meeting with Presbyterians from around the country this week. As always, there is the hand wringing and worry about the state of the church and its future. But when you stop and think about it, God’s people will always have a future in praise and worship, because God is holy. Here among God’s people, the worship of the people of God; before you are here to be nurtured and fed by the Word, by God’s promise, before you are here for the fellowship and companionship of God’s people, before you are here to receive a blessing or experience the Spirit, or feast on some peace….before all of that, you are here because God is holy. God evoking, illiciting, pulling out from within you your praise, your thanksgiving, your worship. Keep it up God! Keep on being holy!
You heard how I imagine the preacher from Hebrews, bringing the heat, finishing the sermon, our God is a consuming fire! What if when we prayed, what if when you prayed the Lord’s Prayer, what if you gave the phrase a little umph. Rather than rushing by it, loosing it in a set to get to “Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done”, what if you slow down, and give it a little rhetorical, oratorical flare that is fitting to a plea for the ongoing holiness of God; begging each day for the persistent, action-oriented holiness of God. Tonight, tomorrow, next week…..
Our Father who art in heaven, HALLOWED BE THY NAME!
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